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help: 200,7500 or 250,5600 Hard Drive questions

S

StellaBlue

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 27, 2008
21
0
NJ/NYC
Hi folks,

I love this forum - first time posting but been reading for a long time. Thanks!

I'm soon to buy a MBP, and would like your opinions please on the hard drive. My first reaction is to buy the faster one. I'm a speed freak and not going to be saving too many big files. This laptop will be my second computer, I have a PowerMac G5 at home.

I'll be using it in school - I'm a high school english teacher. Also in grad school entirely online classes. Classes are mostly posting and reading, a little video. In high school I'll be projecting movie clips and power points to my students. And using excel to keep a gradebook.

I really don't need the extra 50 Gigs but I wonder if the fast one gets too hot or anything like that.

Thanks, looking forward to your opinions.
J
 
Like you said, since you don't need the puny 50GB of space, then go for the 7200 200. That should speed up the boot time quite a bit. I would go for this option myself personally.

For someone like you who doesn't save many big files, 200GB is more than enough for you most likely.
 
Given your nic, I think you need to ask yourself just one question. What would Jerry do?
 
Faster Faster

I have the 200, 7200 rpm drive -- the extra speed really makes the laptop a great deal more snapier.

Get the faster drive.
 
I wasn't sure whether to order mine with the 7200... does it have much impact on battery life??
 
I think there is a small impact on battery life but I always go with the faster drive, even with slightly less space. I just like the extra bit of kick it gives the laptop.
 
Ditto.

Laptop drives are really ridiculously slow anyway (compared to MacPro drives, etc...) ... so anything you can do to speed that up is WELL worth the $90.

Do it!
 
Just as a FYI, I had a 100GB 7200 RPM drive and last night I just upgraded to a 320GB, 5400 RPM drive and I don't notice a difference between the two (I actually think it runs faster with the 320GB drive). I ran XBench and it seems to confirm what I see running it in normal use (the 320GB is faster than the old 100GB drive).

But in your case, the 200GB drive would be better because the slower drive probably has the same platter density as the 200GB, which means the 200GB would be noticeably faster.
 
how much faster does it make boot time?

i ordered a 2.4 with 7200 rpm hard drive, so i was just wondering
 
I am currently saving up for the new MBP and I am having the same question, 7200 or 5400. Is there anywhere online or any statistical measure of the impact on battery life? The fact that Penryn has better battery life is a big selling point to me, a reason to get the new generation instead of the previous, so I wouldn't want to shoot that down with a faster drive. Does it really make that much difference in speed? Thanks.
 
Something for you lot to think about.

http://www.barefeats.com/5472.html

"ANALYSIS AND INSIGHTS

The numbers tell us several things:

  1. The 7200rpm internal drive is NOT significantly faster than the stock 5400rpm when doing small RANDOM reads and writes.
    That implies that it won't give you much advantage for booting and normal operations.
  2. Internal drives exhibited higher random write rates than external FireWire drives.
  3. If you work on audio or video where large blocks are captured or played back, the 7200rpm internal drive of the MacBook has a clear
    advantage over the stock 5400rpm internal drive.
  4. If you plan to connect a fast 3.5 inch 7200rpm hard drive to the FireWire 400 port of the MacBook Pro, you will lose a lot of speed
    compared to using the FireWire 800 port of the Powerbook G4.
    Thankfully, I know of at least two companies who will soon release ExpresCard/34 SATA and/or FireWire 800 products that will allow
    your MacBook Pro to enjoy truly fast external storage."
 
This is the 21st century, so don't listen to cavemen :D

50GB will not change your life, but extra speed will. Just get yourself an esata drive when your internal hdd fills up or if you need to process files >10GB on a regular basis.
 
Yeah go for the higher capacity 5400 drive.

Higher data density also increases speed btw.

A 7200 rpm drive doesn't help noise, heat or battery life.
 
Thanks for the help. If it doesn't make that big a difference I'll go with the extra 50GB for $45-what a deal! I appreciate the information.
 
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